Resource and Planning Manager

at  Anthesis Group

KEY REQUIREMENTS

You will have experience in resource management and will have worked with strategists and creatives in an agency/consultancy environment. You will be proactive in finding solutions to our resourcing needs and challenges. You will be able to see the big picture and be a great communicator across all teams and leadership. You will be confident working with a senior team and advocate for what is needed during times of high pressure.
You will be comfortable working in a growing business and enjoy getting to know new people and understanding their skills. You will feel confident in your ability and are able to manage difficult resource based conversations professionally and constructively. You’ll have experience of working with resource management tools (ideally Float) to support the business with capacity planning, reporting and day to day resourcing.

SUMMARY OF ROLE

This is a fundamental role in our fast-growing business. We know that if we manage our people’s time properly, it has a positive impact on both the business commercials as well as, and often more importantly, the well-being of our teams. We want to make sure we have the right people working on the right jobs with enough time so everyone can be at their best. Having someone to own this process and bring the experience to make this happen is integral to the success of our business.

We are looking for an experienced Resource and Planning Manager who is solutions-focused, calm under pressure, reasonable, approachable and able to build relationships across all disciplines and seniority. You’ll play a key role in capacity planning, resource allocation, project set up, and maintaining accurate project tracking through our resource management tool and finance system. You will work closely with:

• Team Leads who are specialists in their disciplines to ensure we have the right skills across our client work
• The Client Team to support them with team and project planning and set-up
• Resource Managers in the Anthesis Group to identify and solve resource sharing requests
• New business and marketing teams to also manage resources for internal projects and new business pitches/proposals
• Leadership teams to input into utilisation, staff headcount, use of freelancers and supporting the business to achieve our commercial and operational goals
• Freelancers to bring additional skills as and when required

You’ll report into the Associate Client Director who will support you in succeeding in your role and ensure you have the tools and access to information that you need to do your job.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

To give you an idea of what we anticipate from this person on a day-to-day basis, here is a description of some of the key tasks that you will be responsible for:

• Managing day-to-day workloads across the team, working in collaboration with the client team and team leads, in service of a longer-term team plan (that you will help to create and deliver on)
• Working closely with the client team and project delivery strategists/consultants to provide support in creating simple budgets, timing plans, writing scope of work documents and updating resource requests in Float.
• Owning and managing resource requests by validating requirements and affordability based on brief and budget
• Proactively engaging with individuals within the team to gain meaningful understanding of their skills, experience and aspirations, and identify the right opportunities for them
• Leading resource meetings to understand impacts to resource needs (new projects, timeline movement, internal projects etc.) and facilitate risk/issue mitigations
• Liaising with Anthesis Resource Managers to ensure that team members from other Business Lines can be brought onto projects at the appropriate times
• Managing new business requests (pitches/proposals) planning team to work on new business and potential team to deliver if we win
• Providing accurate and insightful reporting and analysis to team leads and the leadership identifying skills gaps and making strategic and thoughtful staffing suggestions to ensure FTE recruitment or FL needs are filled with the right person at the right time and at the right cost
• Identifying current and potential future over/under utilisation, and work with leadership to address issues and mitigate risk
• Maintaining a network of multi-disciplinary freelance contacts who can be called upon at short notice for project or pitch work. This includes recruiting FL talent, managing their contracts, timesheets and raising PO’s